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but let's think it this way kwun. those lin dan pictures were acturally from an action sequence that last for around 20 seconds. if picture number 3 is counted as decisive moment then why not picture number 1 or 2? unlike the photo of eva. i m pretty sure the duration is pretty short!

any comment on this?

yes. HCD retired from photography and returned to painting before the motor drive was invented! (in the late 70s or early 80s, i think)

poor him must be rolling in his grave when he finds out that we are now trying to brute force the decisive moment instead of capturing it with pure intuition and predicting the moment.

What is "best" can be subjective, and may require information about the context in which the picture was taken

let's take these pictures as an example. if jiang did that right after she won the game.(picture #1) ok, that was surely a decisive moment of the event. I congratulate to those who stood on my left hand side and being able to capture that moment.
after 2 second, jiang kept the same posture and turned towards me.(picture#2). what do you think? still being counted as the decisive moment of the event?
which picture looks better? meanwhile, which is the real decisive moment?

yes. HCD retired from photography and returned to painting before the motor drive was invented! (in the late 70s or early 80s, i think)

The motor drive was invented long before 1970. As a matter of fact I used to own a Robot Royal camera (pre-1960 model) that had a spring motor drive which could shoot at a rate of 6 frames/sec and I could shoot the whole roll in no time. I was offered a price I couldn't refuse and sadly it is no longer with me. Its spring motor drive, in which you merely wind the spring, would work at all time, unlike modern motor drives that will cease functioning when the battery is dead.

IMHO, in this discussion, the "decisive moment" along with exposure, composition, etc., are all up to what the photographer has in mind before s/he presses down on the shutter trigger. Afterwards, s/he and s/he alone can decide whether s/he's captured it the way she's envisioned it. When we see the picture we can either agree or disagree with her/him.

For instance, HCB's man jumping over a puddle picture. IIRC, as the story goes, he knew exactly what he wanted to capture and waited for quite a long time for the moment he knew would come. And he didn't take only that one frame either, there were others. But, after everything's said and done, he chose the now famous picture to be published presumably because that's the one that fits his vision. If we're lucky enough to see the "rejected" frames, may be we'd find others that we individually like better, that we think have captured the moment better. It wouldn't matter, however, because the photographer's made his choice.

All I'm saying is that, IMHO, the best picture of any particular subject is the one that fits the owner's vision. The owner can be the photographer as normally is the case in the amateur or independent pro. world, or the publication editor in the commercial world, hopefully with some input from the photographer.

I agree absolutey with quasimodo. In my view a photographer is trying to tell a story and the defining moment is going to change according to the storyteller. I think that when we are assessing what we want to capture we should be asking ourselves what it is we want our picture to say.

For instance, HCB's man jumping over a puddle picture. IIRC, as the story goes, he knew exactly what he wanted to capture and waited for quite a long time for the moment he knew would come. And he didn't take only that one frame either, there were others. But, after everything's said and done, he chose the now famous picture to be published presumably because that's the one that fits his vision. If we're lucky enough to see the "rejected" frames, may be we'd find others that we individually like better, that we think have captured the moment better. It wouldn't matter, however, because the photographer's made his choice.

I am not quite sure if he had shot a few more pictures right before and after that moment. But if he took that shot with his leica m3......then probably not!

Originally Posted by Quasimodo

All I'm saying is that, IMHO, the best picture of any particular subject is the one that fits the owner's vision..

I guess it isn't 100% correct. We just shouldn't think it this way in news photography/photojournalism.